Red
by theblueeyedwanderer
Summary: "And she truly believes, right then and there, that Steve Rogers is going to kill her." Post AoU. Wanda's powers accidentally get out and turn Steve against Natasha. Eventual Romanogers.


**What started as a small idea in my notebook turned into one giant oneshot with a lot of Romanogers feels. Enjoy! This took a lot of time, editing and energy so please review! I hope to update my other story, Moscow, soon. :)**

Everything is red.

Blood, guilt, fear, amplified a thousand times to drown and smother her. Bodies, dead with eyes that stare at nothing yet gaze sharply right into her soul, corpses that somehow reach out to trip her and clutch her ankles. She fights to be free but they're too strong—she hits the ground, hard, and they're pulling her apart, crushing her. They're shouting in Russian, too loud, deafeningly loud. _Natalia,_ they hiss, over and over again. _Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red._ Loki's voice comes out of a rotting corpse with glowing red eyes and she lets out a half-sob, half-shriek. Wake up, wake _up._

She sits bolt upright with a scream and nearly flings herself out of the bed. Gasping, choking for breath between sobs. It's one of the worst nightmares she's ever had, but she can't figure out why. She hadn't even realized it was a dream until the very end. The red, everything glowing an ominous _red…_

 _Wanda._ Natasha shakes her head in another attempt to clear her head. The poor girl had been through hell and back and lost her brother, her other half, in the process. She was a total mess, having nightmares and sleepwalking. It's never happened this bad, but she's released her mind-control magic on accident several times and given the team a start. Natasha doesn't hold it against her, but the nightmare Wanda unintentionally gave her is the worst she remembers. It was so incredibly vivid that she can't stop shaking. She presses her hands into her eyes, trying to rub away the images stamped into her eyelids.

The door opens and slams against the wall. She jumps, squinting in the dark to try and make out who it is. Once her eyes adjust, she recognizes the muscular outline of Steve (Thor sleeps through anything, so it's highly unlikely to be him). She thinks she sees the red glow swirling around him, but dismisses it. Her dream is just haunting her.

"Steve?" Natasha mumbles. "I'm sorry I woke you, I'm fine. Go back to—"

The door slams behind him and locks. Natasha sits up in confusion—he seems furious, for some reason. She reaches over and flicks on the light, stifling a gasp of horror when she sees him.

His eyes are glowing red—but it's not a nightmare. He's been affected, too, and not just had a bad dream. He's possessed, like Banner was. Natasha shudders at the memory and reaches for the gun she keeps in her nightstand.

"You won't do it." Steve scoffs, and the malicious laughter underlying his tone shakes her. Never has she heard him sound so mocking, and his voice grates on her. "You've let yourself become too attached to me. To everyone here." Natasha has no idea if Wanda's powers are playing off of hers or Steve's fears—maybe both.

"You're stupid to think Banner would ever love you," he mocks as he advances on her. "Thinking he could handle your secrets because "you're both monsters". Well, he's a cowardly man but just a physical monster. He's nothing like you."

She trains the gun on him, but her hands shake. He's mere feet away from her now, smirking. But something flashes across his face and his contempt switches to anger. His eyes harden and quicker than even her, he snatches the gun from her grip and slams her onto the floor.

Natasha struggles to regain the breath knocked out of her, but she isn't going down without a fight. She swallows the fear and horror and grabs his arm, flipping him over her and throwing him down. She gets to her feet, searching for the gun she lost in the process. Steve lunges at her and she barely moves away in time; she kicks him away and shoves him into her wall.

He grunts in pain, jaw clenched in fury. He rises back up, towering over her. Natasha is known as a world-class fighter, as one of the best—but Steve she knows she can't beat, not when he's possessed and especially because he's a super soldier. Besides him, Wanda's powers have made Natasha weak. She's dizzy, lethargic. She does her best, landing the occasional punch and staying away from him for a while, but he won't let her reach the door and she's getting tired.

Steve lands a painful punch to the jaw, followed by a kick to the ribs. This is nothing like sparring together for fun or for practice like they do often—no, he's aiming to severely injure if not kill her. She backs up quickly and slashes at him with her knife while doing so, emitting a roar of pain from him, animal-like and furious. This isn't Steve, this is a demon. This is everything she fears—she can't kill him, won't be able to because of her feelings for him and because she owes him a debt, no matter what state he's in.

"Steve," she pleads, hating how pathetic her voice sounds. "Snap out of it, please. This isn't you—"

He yells, grabbing her by the hair and tossing her to the ground without effort. Several kicks follow and she hears ribs crack. She struggles to roll away and barely manages to stand. He wrenches the knife from her hand and slashes her thigh, her forehead. Before she knows it she's pinned up against a wall, knife pressed to her throat.

"You're a lie, Natasha Romanoff. You're a lie and you played me like you've played everyone your whole damn life. You like flirting? Well, I don't."

Natasha frowns in genuine confusion through her haze of pain. "What are you—?"

"You know what I'm talking about," he hisses, and the knife digs deeper, threatening to end her short and miserable life. "Shut the hell up."

"Steve." She coughs as blood drips into her eye, runs down her face. She forces herself to meet his demonic eyes, but they don't change. And she truly believes, right then and there, that Steve Rogers is going to kill her. She's terrified, but she smiles. "I guess then we'll be even, Rogers. Do it."

Something happens. The red disappears and his grip loosens, if only for a second, and she sees those green eyes she thinks about constantly. They're gone in a flash and he pushes her harder, his hands pressing with bruising strength. But she knows he's still in there, somewhere. Everyone always is.

"Steve." She says his name louder this time, firmer. Maybe getting him to kill her is the key—the real him would fight even that. Wouldn't he? "Do it. I owe you a debt I don't think I can repay. So slit my throat. Kill me."

Another flicker, long enough to where she has gained the upper hand. Natasha brings her knee into his groin and then kicks him backward, ignoring the stinging from the knife slipping. It hurts a lot, but it didn't slice her jugular like she feared or slit her throat. She's fine.

Steve rises to his knees, and in an awful twist of irony she is looking at Clint when he was trying to kill her on the deck of the helicarrier. He too had no idea what he was doing. He too was in the exact same position as Steve is now—maybe a cognitive recalibration would work this time.

Natasha punches him, hard, enough to knock out Clint but only enough to knock Steve over for a second. It either does the trick or Wanda has woken up and controlled her magic—she prays that's the case. She can't hold him off much longer.

He's still, for a second, dazed and confused. He sits up slowly, looking around. "Nat—?"

Natasha stares at him, still afraid his eyes will revert to red. But they don't. She sinks down to the floor with a wince of pain. God knows what damage he's done.

He squints, taking in fully the scene in front of him. Furniture and weapons askew, broken glass, Natasha bleeding on the floor.

Steve shoots up, moves towards her. "Nat, you're hurt! What the hell is going—?"

She flinches and twists away from him, her body still instinctively afraid. She wipes blood from her face with the back of her hands and mutters a weak, "I'm fine."

"You're not, what happened? Why am I in here? I don't even remember how I got here."

He gets his answer as the door breaks open and an out-of-breath Wanda bursts in. "Oh my God. Oh, no. Nat, are you okay? I'm so so sorry, I don't know what happened. It's never been this bad before and I had no control—?"

Natasha waves her hand at her in dismissal. "It's okay, Wanda. Nobody died in here." She manages a dry laugh but regrets it due to her ribs.

The girl nods, wide-eyed. "You're injured—did Captain Rogers—?"

"I said it's fine, Wanda," Natasha breathes, struggling to talk through the pain and throbbing. We're all struggling after…after Sokovia. This is part of that. Just—let JARVIS know I'll be using the med part of Tony's lab. And wake Clint up, please."

"Of course, Natasha." She's gone, looking close to tears, as Steve puts the pieces together and stares at Natasha in horror, running his hands down his slightly bruised face.

"I…I did this to you. Oh, God…" His face is pale and he looks revolted by his own soul, helpless.

Natasha spits out blood. "It's not your fault, Steve," she promises, but her hands tremble and she is rattled by what has occurred, deeply shaken by the fear of him. She'd always seen his as infallible, perfect, too good for her yet unable to hurt her, trustable with her deepest secrets she would never tell him. And now this—this shatters that.

 _You're a lie, Natasha Romanoff._

Clint bursts into the room, wild and furious and frightened. She hasn't seen him this worked up since Budapest. But then again…Sokovia was far worse than Budapest. Clint was struggling since Pietro's death—he knew it wasn't really his fault but he was so haunted by the death of a kid who died to save him. His eyes were much more troubled lately, distant and stormy.

"Clint," she rasps, dizzied by the pain.

He shoves Steve out of the way with a "what the hell, Rogers?" and Natasha knows he'll be furious at the soldier for a while. Clint has a bad habit of holding extreme grudges against anyone who wrongs her. "Hey, Nat. You look pretty rough."

"You don't look much better yourself, old man."

He forces a smile and starts assessing her, muttering, "Didn't miss much, did you, Rogers?"

Steve stares at the two despairingly, unable to help and drowning in guilt. "I—"

"Shut up." Clint starts ripping his shirt into bandages to stop the worst of the bleeding. "Come on, Nat, let's get you to the med bay." He puts his arms around her and ever-so-carefully helps her up, supporting most of her weight. She grits her teeth in pain and forces herself to move one bruised leg in front of the other as her vision blurs, the effort enormous. Finally, Clint swings her up into his arms and carries her out, yelling something at JARVIS that sounds like it's underwater. She tries to tell him that she's fine, she can walk, but he won't hear it.

Tony's lab is shiny and too-bright and it hurts Natasha's eyes. She squints and watches Clint wipe the blood from her face, bandage her ribs, stitch her where needed—and she is so out of it that it almost feels like she's watching from behind a glass window or from above.

She doesn't know if she can look at Steve the same way. She can't get that vicious, venomous voice out of her head, spitting brutal truths at her and firing at her weakest spots on purpose. It wasn't really _him_ , but his words haunt her worse than those of Loki. So that's what he thought about her and Bruce, what he thinks about her and her past, and what he…feels for her?

She is still startled for his angry jab at her past flirting with him. He sounded _hurt_. Like he liked her _back._

Natasha dismisses it, because Wanda's powers probably projected her fears rather than Steve's. Steve had no feelings towards her, he'd made his opinions pretty clear. Right?

She grimaces as Clint pops back into place a shoulder that she wasn't even aware was dislocated. More bandages.

"Clint." Her voice is hoarse from Steve's fists attempting to crush her windpipe. "It wasn't Steve's fault."

He doesn't look at her. "Yeah, well, next time something like that happens I won't hesitate to shoot him. You could've been killed, Nat. You know you couldn't beat him, not all jacked up like that."

Natasha isn't sure if he really means it or not, but she doesn't want to test him further and her throat hurts too much, so she simply sits in the heavy silence and waits for him to finish patching her up, like they've done for each other for years. He's protective of her, almost too much so, and his fury on her behalf is comforting yet disconcerting.

He carries her back to his room and locks the door, setting her gently in the bed that's still slightly mussed from his own sleep. Her head throbs with pain and swims with the sharp words of Steve, and she closes her eyes with a whimper of pain in an attempt to block it all out. She _hates_ this, hates feeling so weak and shell-shocked. She hates that because of her Clint isn't sleeping but sitting and watching her, weapon in hand. She hates that Steve was possessed and crazy but his words were some of the most truthful she's ever heard. He's right about her, whether he meant to say it or not. She hurt him, she made horrible decisions, she's a sick monster. She becomes even more nauseous at these thoughts.

By morning, though she doesn't sleep, the pain ebbs slightly into a duller ache that is only sharp when she moves or breathes. She can't help but groan as she agonizingly sits up. Clint is slumped over asleep in his chair, and she allows herself an internal laugh at how dorky he looks.

Steve doesn't show up to breakfast. As Natasha walks in supported heavily by Clint, Tony starts to make what is undoubtedly a biting comment or inappropriate jab—but the words die in his mouth as he sees the extent of her injuries and how tormented her eyes are. He clears his throat and looks back down at his waffles, and Clint fills in the stunned team. Wanda isn't at breakfast, either, and Natasha is worried for her. The emotional toll of Sokovia and now this is possibly more than the girl can handle.

Natasha knows that Steve is probably far too guilty and scared of hurting her to be near her. And she's right, because the day turns into a week and then two and still he doesn't show. She spends a lot of time alone, recovering, attempting to sort through her emotions and figure out what the hell she wants with Steve Rogers. She knows she loves him, has known since DC. Banner was a mistake, a painful one, but she doesn't deserve either of them. Steve is too good and too pure and deserves far better than her. Her ledger is far too red to burden him with.

Besides—and she hates it—she can't help but be a little afraid of him. Her nightmares intensify and are filled with him killing her or Clint in various ways, him hissing secrets of her past in her ear before he snaps her neck. Her feelings of love and fear are so confusing it makes her sick, but eventually her emotions quell into a hollow hurt and missing of him.

Tony drops his other projects to work on something to help Wanda's powers stay in control. He programs JARVIS with a protocol that will alert the others and the Iron Legion if there is a release, performing lockdowns and security measures that will ultimately prevent another "Steve vs Natasha Hunger Games" as he calls it. He works on pills that will help her sleep smoother. Natasha finds herself hating him a little less.

The end of week two approaches before she sees him. He comes back at three in the morning, duffel bag of stuff in hand, looking like he hasn't slept since it happened. She's sitting quietly in the dark kitchen, hidden from his sight, drinking after another nightmare has kept her up. He's almost out of the kitchen when she speaks, voice still hoarse but much improved.

"You're back."

He freezes at the sound of her voice. Turns. Looks at her, pained, and speaks softly. "I hope I didn't wake you."

She averts her gaze, instead staring at the near-empty bottle of liquor. "Nightmare did," she says flatly. "Where the hell've you been?"

He's flailing for words, and she watches him struggle. "Away."

Natasha swings her legs down from the counter and narrows her eyes at him. "Avoiding your problems," she corrects.

"Look, Nat…I couldn't bring myself to be here, not after what I did to you." His eyes trace the bruises still evident on her body. "I don't know why I came back. I wasn't going to, originally."

She cocks an eyebrow. "You were going to _leave_ the Avengers?"

"Yeah. No. I—"

"You need to understand that firstly, nothing that happened was your fault. Second, forget what Tony thinks, you're the real leader of this team. We need you."

"I know, but…I just wanted say I'm sorry. For that and for the things I said after the battle. About Bruce," he says, and Natasha thinks painfully back to the argument they had after Banner left her, screaming at each other in the corridors of the helicarrier. "I didn't mean it, and I didn't have a right to tell you what to do. If you love him, then you have a right to be upset. I'm sorry he left, really."

"It doesn't matter," she says dismissively, but flinches.

"He made a mistake. He's an idiot and a cruel one, at that, to drop off the face of the earth like tha—"

"I never loved him." She cuts in. He stops and frowns.

"I—you didn't?"

"I thought I did, but I was unstable after Wanda messed with my head. I…" she pinches her lips, hating herself for spilling her secrets to Banner. "I did it without thinking, told him things I've never even told Clint. I wasn't myself. He acted indifferent but it obviously repulsed him. He took my secrets and left because he couldn't handle them."

"Nat, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

Natasha shakes her head, her smile dry and not quite reaching her eyes. "Love is for children," she tells him, echoing what she said before New York, what she always tried to live out. But it isn't working. She chooses her next words carefully. "Our fight on the helicarrier…and the one last week—it seemed almost like you were jealous." It's a cautious statement, not unkind and without malice.

Steve takes a deep breath. His bags are set on the floor by now, full focus on her in the eery half-lit kitchen. "Since DC."

Natasha starts, jumping down from the counter. "What?" But she has an idea of what he's getting at.

His shoulders slump in defeat. Out with it. It's been eating him for months, might as well. "I've been jealous of every man you've spoken to since we started our first mission in DC. I didn't mind that kiss we did to avoid being spotted and killed. I was worried sick when Bucky shot you, and I didn't want to leave you when Sam and I went to fight. I didn't want you to leave when you did at the cemetery that day. I know you think love is foolish and you're probably right. But I've been in love with you for a year." He takes a sharp breath, cutting short his ramble, afraid he's said too much.

Natasha is stunned. She shoves away the sudden urge to reach across and touch his face—never before has she felt so much for a person. But…

It doesn't matter. She can't burden him with her problems, and she knows that all too well. Her ledger is far too red, her life an incredibly elaborate lie. She stands stock-still, indecisiveness churning inside, before blurting out, "Me too."

It's his turn to be confused. "You…?"

"I've been pushing it away, but yes. I feel the same." She can't bring herself to say the three words, hoping they convey in her tone. He's coming closer to her now, but she isn't afraid anymore. She pushes everything aside, feeling lighter and freer than she has in ages. Despite her injuries, despite everything that has happened—her half-smirk half-actual-smile is genuine. "You know, public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."

They kiss as the clock turns to 4 AM, in the dim kitchen near the top of the Avengers tower.


End file.
